Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.09UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.1UNLIKELY
Fear
0.06UNLIKELY
Joy
0.58LIKELY
Sadness
0.52LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.67LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.56LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.95LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.37UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.29UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.91LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.7LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
I. Scripture is clear about the Relationship of Mary and Joseph.
A. God wants us to know how Christ was conceived.
“on this wise”, “This is how it happened”.
1. Everything about Jesus is important.
His existence before He came into the world (John 1:1), His conception and birth, His life, His death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension.
There is nothing insignificant about Jesus.
We ought to see, study and savor everything that Scripture tells us about Him.
2. The birth of Jesus tells us a lot about Him.
“birth” in verse 18 is same word as “generation” in 1:1.
God is about to give us the genealogy of Jesus on His Father’s side.1:1
takes us back to Abraham, 1:18 takes us back to eternity.
3. Satan has tried to cast doubt on this truth.
John 8:41 the religious leaders accused Jesus of being born of fornication.
Liberal theologians and unbelievers cast doubt upon the virgin birth as well.
We need to understand that God deems the circumstances of Christ conception important, therefore we should as well.
B. Mary and Joseph were espoused to be married.
1. Betrothal was the common way for Jews to marry.
This was a contract made between two families arranging marriage of their children.
When the contract was finalized the couple was considered legally married.
There was a 6-12 month waiting period before the actual ceremony took place.
Essentially this was to prove the faithfulness of the couple.
Pregnancy would be tough to hide for this long.
2. Joseph (or his family) would have to pay Mary’s father.
The payment was up to the father, so the amount varied.
This money was for several reasons: 1) to cover expenses for the wedding.
Wedding celebrations lasted 7 days and could be extravagant and expensive.
2) It served as a type of life insurance for the wife.
Father’s often would save this money in case something happened to the husband.
The wife would then be given the money to provide for her needs.
3) It restrained divorces- who could afford to keep giving goods and money away?
3. We have every reason to believe these two were in love.
This method is looked down upon in our culture.
We see it as “forced marriage”.
But it was not forced.
Today we seem to leave marriage to “fate and feelings”.
With the divorce rate at over 50% our method doesn’t seem to be working so well.
A good father would have his daughter’s best interest in mind.
He would betroth her to a man she was interested in and that was adequate in character.
C. Before the ceremony took place Joseph discovered Mary was pregnant.
1.
I think she told him privately.
I’m not sure how many people knew that Mary was pregnant, but the circle was small.
This must have devastated Joseph.
Joseph did not immediately believe what Mary said.
It’s implied that she told him about her encounter with the angel.
2. There is a crisis of belief for Joseph.
We’ll look at that in a moment.
Who knows if the two had already had their first fight or if this led to it?
We don’t give Joseph enough credit.
This is a hard pill to swallow.
But I think I see the love of Joseph and Mary here.
Obviously they were in love.
I’m sure Joseph had plans for the two, and that would include children, but not in this way.
II.
Scripture is clear about the integrity of Mary.
A. Joseph doubted her integrity.
1.
I think this is normal.
Now he knew that he had not been with Mary.
He believed her to be a virtuous woman.
But obviously “someone” had been with Mary.
He wasn’t buying the whole angel thing.
So he wondered if she was as virtuous as he thought she was.
He had determined to divorce her in some way.
He wasn’t going to go through with the ceremony.
2. Joseph was a just man.
That means he was righteous.
He lived his convictions.
He had been true to her. Mary was not the only virgin in the picture.
The justice of God would call for a woman like Mary to be stoned along with the fellow she committed adultery with (Deut.
20:7).
It was a just thing for him to call the wedding off as well.
But the righteousness of Joseph was tempered with grace.
That is seen in that he did not immediately put her away.
He probably would have, had God not intervened.
But it would not be an easy thing for him.
He was just, he believed in righteous living.
3. Joseph was a merciful man.
Look at verse 19.
He was not willing to make her a public example.
He did not want to hurt Mary.
Not only did he not want her stoned, he didn’t want her to be a public example either.
By Jesus day the Jews had greatly watered down the Law.
Rather than stone adulterers, other options were developed.
One was the public example.
This consisted of taking the woman to court, revealing the evidence of her infidelity and having her openly shamed in the community.
This would not kill her but her reputation and the reputation of her family as well.
There was another option as well.
You could have a very private hearing in front of a few people and be given a bill of divorcement.
In this case it was not even mandated that the reason for the divorce be written on the bill.
That was the option Joseph was considering.
Joseph loved Mary, but he doubted her integrity.
B. The Lord erases all doubt from Joseph’s mind.
1.
The Lord saw the pain Joseph felt.
Look at verse 20 “while he thought on these things’.
Joseph couldn’t get this off of his mind.
He continued to wonder how Mary could do such a thing to him.
And he was debating on just how he was going to go through with the divorce.
We can be sure there was some serious spiritual warfare going on, fiery darts of the devil.
But Joseph was suffering from a broken heart and surely the Lord saw that.
Sometimes thinking causes more pain than anything else.
2. The Lord spoke to Joseph through an angel.
Somehow Joseph managed to get to sleep.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9